07 - 08 OCTOBRE 2010

- 08 OCTOBRE :

- U.S.A. : Alaska - What's being called the first large-scale excavation in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta has yielded a treasure trove of ancient Eskimo objects, and sparked a race against global warming along the eroding Bering Sea coast. At the 700-year-old site near the village of Quinhagak -- called Nunalleq or Yup'ik for "old village site" -- workers have discovered dozens of sod homes just under the tundra. They've recovered thousands of objects that had long been locked in ice. The list includes "miraculously preserved" bentwood bowls, knives with handles, whole clay pots, and carved figures, or "dolls," some with expressive faces caught in a smile or frown. The items are placed in a waxy chemical immediately to protect them because they can crumble in minutes if they dry out. The find includes what my have been a men's house, or qasgiq, a school where boys learned survival skills from men. Wood shavings lined the floor, perhaps dropped from carving lessons, a common guy activity. "Boy toys" littered the large house -- model kayaks of wood, slate arrow blades still attached to shafts, harpoon points. The women's tools, such as moon-shaped ulu knives for cutting through fish and bone-needles for sewing, were found elsewhere. Nunalleq is already providing clues into Yup'ik pre-history and the broader Eskimo culture that includes Aleuts and Inupiat, such as where they originated. More will be discovered.

- INDE : Chada - The state archaeology department has found a limestone statue of Gautam Buddha that dates back to at least 1,800 years. The limestone statue from the second century CE was discovered at Chada village in the Atmakur mandal of Nalgonda district when labourers were tilling the fields. In addition to the idol, Buddhist sculptural panels and a few large bricks were also unearthed. The finds reveal the existence of a new Buddhist site in the Telangana region. This evidence adds to the cluster of Buddhist sites in Nalgonda district such as Tirumalagiri, Phanigiri, Gazulabanda, Vardhamanukota, Aravapalli and Nagaram; all located on the banks of Bikkeru. The district is also studded with famous Buddhist sites on the eastern side such as Yeleswaram and Nagarjunakonda.

- U.S.A. : Nebraska - The University of Nebraska State Museum's Nebraska Archaeological Survey began archaeological investigations in September at several prehistoric sites at Hugh Butler Lake in Frontier County. Test excavations are being conducted at five prehistoric archaeological sites within the boundaries of the reservoir, which is impounded by Red Willow Dam. This testing program is built upon recent archaeological surveys within the reservoir area carried out by the Nebraska Archaeological Survey in 2007 and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in 2005. The sites chosen for investigation probably range in age from 700 to 5,500 years before present.

- RUSSIE : Boguchamskaya - Siberian archeologists have discovered an ancient tomb belonging to unknown people in the Krasnoyarsk region where the construction of the Boguchanskaya hydropower station is now underway. This unknown group of people lived along the River Angara about one thousand years ago, before the arrival of the Tungus, the ancestors of the present Evenks. All 31 graves of the medieval cemetery were dug according to a single ritual. The body was cremated and the remains were buried. Archeologists discovered weapons, belts, various jewellery, pots for food and tools. Several graves belonged to distinguished people, and over a hundred items, which were buried with their remains, were discovered. The overall number of items discovered exceeds 10 thousand. The significance of the discovery is that this is a complex of graves rather than individual graves that were discovered earlier. This is an entire cemetery, either clan or patrimonial. It shows how cultural ties and contacts changed. The local people had close contacts with other peoples in the Urals and the Kyrgyz. The expedition of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been doing excavations at the site in the past three years. This year, over one thousand archeologists studied three cultural layers belong to the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Middle Age.

- BULGARIE : Topola - A team of archaeologists working at a bi-ritual necropolis near Topola village, Kavarna region, northeastern Bulgaria, found unique early Byzantine coin dated back from the ruling of Khan Tervel (700-721), Lyudmila Doncheva, head of the team announced. The coin is from the reign of Byzantine Emperor Leontios (717-741). Lyudmila Doncheva assumes that most probably the find is connected to the siege of Constantinople in which Bulgarian Khan Tervel participated. The artifact is considered very valuable because this is the earliest dated coin ever unearthed in a bi-ritual necropolis, professor Doncheva stated. She added that at such archaeological sites coins are rarely found. Untill now one silver and one gold coin of the same kind were found near Kyulevcha village, Shoumen district, but they belong to a later period.

- U.S.A. : Lexington - Stored and forgotten for decades, artifacts from the site of Lexington’s historic Hancock-Clarke House will soon offer a rare glimpse into family life in the early 18th century. The house, built in 1737, served as the parsonage for the Rev. John Hancock and his wife, Elizabeth. Their grandson John, whose famous signature has a prominent place on the Declaration of Independence, lived in the house for several years after the death of his father in the 1740s. The Lexington Historical Society bought the house in 1896 with the proviso that it be moved across the street to preserve it. Then in the 1960s, the society acquired the original land and moved the house back. Some 40 boxes of artifacts were collected, stored, and forgotten. And quite a lot of stuff there is — including ceramics, glassware, metal tools, buttons, buckles, and other items dating from about 1690 to 1740. They offer a window into everyday life in Lexington before the Revolutionary War.